Referring to FIG. 1 illustrating the disclosure of Korean Patent Registration No. 0369300 filed and registered by the applicant of the present invention for “Automatic Rhinestone Attachment Apparatus having a plurality of rhinestone aligners”, the disclosed apparatus comprises a table transfer device 20, a rhinestone suction device 30, a rhinestone aligning device 40, a drive device 50, and a controller. The table transfer device 20 includes a work piece seating table 22 installed on a lower frame 10A, on which rhinestone to be attached will be seated, the work piece seating table 22 being installed movably in both X-axis and Y-axis directions to change an attachment position of the rhinestone. The rhinestone suction device 30 includes a supporting bracket 32 having one end mounted at a front surface of an upper frame 10B that is coupled with the lower frame 10A, a pair of rhinestone suction members 34 provided at the supporting bracket 32 to maintain a predetermined angle there between, and a position change member 36 coupled to the upper frame 10B and used to operate the respective rhinestone suction members 34 within the range of the predetermined angle. The rhinestone aligning device 40 includes a pair of rotation supporting members 41 vertically extending downward from the upper frame 10B at opposite sides of the rhinestone suction device 30, a rotating member 44 provided at each of the rotatable supporting members 41, and a plurality of rhinestone aligning members 42 coupled to the rotating member 44 by means of shafts 43. The drive device 50 includes a revolution drive member 52 provided at each rotation supporting member 41 to operate the associated rotating member 44, and a rotation drive member 54 installed at a lower end of the rotation supporting member 41 to operate the rhinestone aligning members 42 after the rhinestone aligning members 42 are moved to set points by operation of the revolution drive member 52. The controller includes a rotating-member position detecting sensor 62 to sense a rotating angle of the associated rotating member 44 when the rotating member 44 is rotated by the revolution drive member 52, and an aligning-member position detecting sensor 64 to sense a position of the associated rhinestone aligning member 42. The controller is used to control the table transfer device 20, rhinestone suction device 30, and drive device 50 based on data inputted thereto.
In the above described conventional automatic rhinestone attachment apparatus, to deal with various kinds of rhinestone having different sizes and shapes from one another for mass production, it is necessary to provide a plurality of rhinestone aligning devices 40. This results in increased installation costs and consequently, high product price. Further, since the conventional apparatus needs an air supply line for use with the rhinestone aligning members 42 and the rhinestone suction members 34, which utilize pneumatically-rotated cylinders, the resultant apparatus has problems of complex configuration and unwanted centrifugal separation of large-size rhinestone. Yet another problem of the above described conventional apparatus is that it always makes only a constant directional pattern when using symmetrical rhinestone.